I. Editions of the Augsb. Conf.: The best critical
edition in the 26th vol. of the "Corpus Reformatorum," ed.
Bretschneider und Bindseil (1858), 776 pages. It gives the Invariata
and the Variata, in Latin and German, with critical apparatus, list of
MSS. and early editions, and the preceding documents: viz., the
Articles of Visitation, the Marburg, the Schwabach, and the Torgau
Articles.

The Confession in Latin or German, or both, Is
embodied in all the collections of Lutheran symbols by Rechenberg,
Walch, Weber, Hase, Meyer, Francke, Müller.

English translation, with Latin text, in Schaff,
Creeds, III. 3–73; in English alone, in Henkel, Book
of Concord, 1854, and Jacobs, Book of Concord, Philad., 1882. The first
English translation was made by Richard Taverner, London, 1536, the
last, on the basis of this, by Charles P. Krauth. (See B. M. Schmucker:
English Translations of the Augsb. Conf., Philad., 1887, 34 pp.)

On the literature compare Köllner:
Symbolik der Lutherischen Kirche, Hamburg, 1837, pp.
150–152, with a full history of the Conf., pp.
153–396.

III. On special points: Luther’s
relation to the Augsb. Conf. is discussed by Rückert, Jena,
1854; Calinich, Leipz., 1861; Knaake, Berlin, 1863. The relation of the
A. C. to the Marburg, Schwabach, and Torgau Articles is treated by Ed.
Engelhardt in the "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol.," 1865, pp.
515–529; and by Th. Brieger in "Kirchengesch.
Studien," Leipzig, 1888, pp. 265–320.

The Augsburg Confession is the first and the most
famous of evangelical confessions. It gave clear, full, systematic
expression to the chief articles of faith for which Luther and his
friends had been contending for thirteen years, since he raised his
protest against the traffic in indulgences. By its intrinsic merits and
historic connections, it has become the chief doctrinal standard of the
Lutheran Church, which also bears the name of the "Church of the
Augsburg Confession." It retains this position to this day,
notwithstanding the theological and ecclesiastical dissensions in that
communion. It furnished the keynote to similar public testimonies of
faith, and strengthened the cause of the Reformation everywhere. It had
a marked influence upon the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
England.962962 See the proof in Schaff, Creeds of
Christendom, I. 624 sqq. In the final
revision by the author, and with the necessary change in the tenth
article, it has also been frequently adopted by Reformed divines and
congregations. But it was never intended, least of all by Melanchthon,
who mended it to the last moment and even after its adoption, as an
infallible and ultimate standard, even of the Lutheran Church. It was
at first modestly called an, "Apology," after the manner of the
Christian Apologies in the ante-Nicene age, and meant to be simply a
dispassionate statement in vindication of the Lutheran faith before the
Roman Catholic world.

It is purely apologetic, and much more irenic than
polemic. It aims to be, if possible, a Formula of Concord, instead of
Discord. It is animated by a desire for reconciliation with Rome. Hence
it is remarkably mild in tone, adheres closely to the historic faith,
and avoids all that could justly offend the Catholics. It passes by, in
silence, the supremacy of the Scriptures as the only rule of faith and
practice, and some of the most objectionable features in the Roman
system,—as indulgences, purgatory, and the papal
primacy (which Melanchthon was willing to tolerate on an impossible
condition). In short, it is the most churchly, the most catholic, the
most conservative creed of Protestantism. It failed to conciliate Rome,
but became the strongest bond of union among Lutherans.

The Confession is the ripe fruit of a gradual
growth. It is based chiefly upon three previous confessional
documents—the fifteen Articles of Marburg, Oct. 4,
1529, the seventeen Articles of Schwabach (a modification and expansion
of the former by Luther, with the insertion of his view of the real
presence), adopted by the Lutheran princes in a convent at Schwabach,
near Nürnberg, Oct. 16, 1529, and several Articles of Torgau
against certain abuses of the Roman Church, drawn up by Luther,
Melanchthon, Jonas, and Bugenhagen, by order of the Elector, at his
residence in Torgau, March 20, 1530.963963 The Articuli Torgavienses were formerly
confounded with the Articuli Suobacences till
Förstemann discovered the former in the archives at Weimar
(1833). The first two documents furnished the material for
the first or positive part of the Augsburg Confession; the last, for
its second or polemical part.

Melanchthon used this material in a free way, and
made a new and far better work, which bears the stamp of his
scholarship and moderation, his power of condensation, and felicity of
expression. He began the preparation at Coburg, with the aid of Luther,
in April, and finished it at Augsburg, June 24. He labored on it day
and night, so that Luther had to warn him against over-exertion. "I
command you," he wrote to him May 12, "and all your company that they
compel you, under pain of excommunication, to take care of your poor
body, and not to kill yourself from imaginary obedience to God. We
serve God also by taking holiday and rest."

If we look at the contents, Luther is the primary,
Melanchthon the secondary, author; but the form, the method, style, and
temper are altogether Melanchthon’s. Nobody else could
produce such a work. Luther would have made it more aggressive and
polemic, but less effective for the occasion. He himself was conscious
of the superior qualification of his friend for the task, and expressed
his entire satisfaction with the execution. "It pleases me very well,"
he wrote of the Confession, "and I could not change or improve it; nor
would it be becoming to do so, since I cannot tread so softly and
gently."964964 "Denn ich so sanft und leise nicht treten
kann." Letter to
Elector John, May 15, 1530. In De Wette, IV. 17. He calls the
Augustana die Leisetreterin, the softly stepping Confession. Letter to Jonas, July 2l,
1530. He would have made
the tenth article on the real presence still stronger than it is; would
have inserted his sola in the doctrine of justification by faith, as he
did in his German Bible; and rejected purgatory, and the tyranny of
popery, among the abuses in the second part. He would have changed the
whole tone, and made the document a trumpet of war.

The Augsburg Confession proper (exclusive of
preface and epilogue) consists of two parts,—one
positive and dogmatic, the other negative and mildly polemic or rather
apologetic. The first refers chiefly to doctrines, the second to
ceremonies and institutions. The order of subjects is not strictly
systematic, though considerably improved upon the arrangement of the
Schwabach and Torgau Articles. In the manuscript copies and oldest
editions, the articles are only numbered; the titles were subsequently
added.

I. The first part presents in twenty-one
articles—beginning with the Triune God, and ending
with the worship of saints—a clear, calm, and
condensed statement of the doctrines held by the evangelical Lutherans:
(1) in common with the Roman Church; (2) in common with the Augustinian
school in that church; (3) in opposition to Rome; and (4) in
distinction from Zwinglians and Anabaptists.

(1) In theology and Christology, i.e., the
doctrines of God’s unity and trinity (Art. I.), and of
Christ’s divine-human personality (III.), the
Confession strongly re-affirms the ancient catholic faith as laid down
in the oecumenical creeds, and condemns (damnamus) the old and new
forms of Unitarianism and Arianism as heresies.

(2) In anthropology, i.e., in the articles on the
fall and original sin (II.), the slavery of the natural will and
necessity of divine grace (XVIII.), the cause and nature of sin (XIX.),
the Confession is substantially Augustinian, in opposition to the
Pelagian and semi-Pelagian heresies. The Donatists are also condemned
(damnant, VIII.) for denying the objective virtue of the ministry and
the sacraments, which Augustin defended against them.

(3) The general evangelical views more or less
distinct from those of Rome appear in the articles on justification by
faith (IV.), the Gospel ministry (V.), new obedience (VI.), the Church
(VII., VIII.), repentance (XII.), ordination (XIV.), ecclesiastical
rites (XV.), civil government (XVI.), good works (XIX.), the worship of
saints, and the exclusive mediatorship of Christ (XX.).

These articles are so guardedly and skillfully
worded as to disarm the papal opponents. Even the doctrine of
justification by faith (Art. IV.), which Luther declared to be the
article of the standing or falling church, is briefly and mildly
stated, without the sola so strongly insisted on by Luther, and so
objectionable to the Catholics, who charged him with willful perversion
of the Scriptures, for inserting it in the Epistle to the Romans
(3:28).965965 In a letter to Brenz, May, 1531 (Corp. Ref.,
II. 502), Melanchthon remarks that he did not speak more plainly on
this point, "propter adversariorum calumnias." In the Apology of
the Confession (Art. IV.), he is more explicit, and declares this
doctrine incidentally to be "the chief point of Christian doctrine
(praecipuus locus doctrinae Christianae) in this controversy."
Müller, Symb. Bücher, p. 87.
Döllinger charges Melanchthon, in his varying statements of
this doctrine, with sophistry, Die Reformation, III. 279 sqq. The revisers of the Luther
Bible retained the insertion allein in Rom. 3:28.

(4) The distinctively Lutheran
views—mostly retained from prevailing catholic
tradition, and differing in part from those of other Protestant
churches—are contained in the articles on the
sacraments (IX., X., XIII.), on confession and absolution (XI.), and
the millennium (XVII.). The tenth article plainly asserts the doctrine
of a real bodily presence and distribution of Christ in the eucharist
to all communicants, and disapproves (improbant) of those who teach
differently (the Zwinglians).966966 That the Zwinglians are meant by the secus
docentes (in the German ed., Gegenlehr), must be inferred from the preceding
Conference at Marburg, and the whole conduct of the Lutherans during
the Diet. The omission of Zwingli’s name was due,
probably, to respect for his friend the Landgrave of Hesse, one of the
signers of the Confession. The Anabaptists are not only disapproved, but
condemned (damnamus) as heretics three times: for their views on infant
baptism and infant salvation (IX.),967967 "They condemn the Anabaptists, who disallow the
baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without
baptism." The edition of 1540 adds after "sine baptismo" the
words "et extra ecclesiam Christi." The Romish Confutation fully
approves of the condemnation of the Anabaptists, and calls them
"hominum genus seditiosissimum, procul a finibus Romani imperii
eliminandum." Corp. Reform., XXVII. 105. Civil offices (XVI.), the millennium and final
restoration (XVII.).

These anti-Zwinglian and anti-Baptist articles,
however, have long since lost their force in the Lutheran Church.
Melanchthon himself changed the wording of the tenth Article in the
edition of 1540, and omitted the clause of disapproval. The damnation
of unbaptized infants dying in infancy, which is indirectly indorsed by
condemning the opposite, is a fossil relic of a barbarous orthodoxy,
and was justly denied by the Baptists, as also by Zwingli and
Bullinger, who on this point were ahead of their age. The first
official deliverance against this dogma was raised by the Reformed
Church of Scotland, in the Second Scotch Confession (1581), which
condemns among the errors of "the Roman Antichrist" "his Cruel judgment
against infants departing without the sacrament, and his absolute
necessity of baptism."968968 Schaff, Creeds, i. 687, iii.
482.

The doctrine of the second advent and millennium
(rejected in Art. XVII.), if we except the dreams of the radical wing
of the Anabaptists, has found advocates among sound and orthodox
Lutherans, especially of the school of Bengel, and must be regarded as
an open question.

The last Article of the doctrinal part expresses
the assurance that the Lutherans hold no doctrine which is contrary to
the Scriptures, or to the Catholic or even the Roman Church, as far as
known from the fathers, and differ from her only on certain traditions
and ceremonies. Luther knew better, and so did the Romanists. Only
Melanchthon, in his desire for union and peace, could have thus
deceived himself; but he was undeceived before he left Augsburg, and in
the Apology of the Confession be assumed a very different tone.

II. The second part of the Confession rejects, in
seven articles, those abuses of Rome which were deemed most
objectionable, and had been actually corrected in the Lutheran
churches; namely, the withdrawal of the communion cup from the laity
(I.), the celibacy of the clergy (II.), the sacrifice of the mass
(III.), obligatory auricular confession (IV.), ceremonial feasts and
fasts (V.), monastic vows (VI.), and the secular power of the bishops
as far as it interferes with the purity and spirituality of the church
(VII.). This last Article is virtually a protest against the principle
of Erastianism or Caesaro-papacy, and would favor in its legitimate
consequences a separation of church and state. "The ecclesiastical and
civil powers," says the Confession, "are not to be confounded. The
ecclesiastical power has its own commandment to preach the gospel and
administer the sacraments. Let it not by force enter into the office of
another, let it not transfer worldly kingdoms," etc. And as to the
civil power, it is occupied only with worldly matters, not with the
gospel, and "defends not the minds, but the bodies and bodily things,
against manifest injuries." This protest has been utterly disregarded
by the Protestant rulers in Germany. The same Article favors the
restoration of the episcopal jurisdiction with purely spiritual and
ecclesiastical authority. This also was wholly disregarded by the
signers, who were unwilling to give up their summepiscopate which they
had claimed and exercised since 1526 with the consent of the
Reformers.

The Confession concludes with these words: "Peter
forbids bishops to be lords, and to be imperious over the churches (1
Pet. 5:3). Now, our meaning is not to take the rule from the bishops,
but this one thing only is requested at their hands, that they would
suffer the gospel to be purely taught, and that they would relax a few
observances which cannot be held without sin. But if they will remit
none, let them look how they will give account to God for this, that by
their obstinacy they afford cause of division and schism."969969 It was Melanchthon’s wish
(which Köllner chose as motto for his Symb. d. luth.
Kirche): "Utinam utinam possim non quidem dominationem
confirmare, sed administrationem restituere episcoporum. Video enim,
qualem habituri simus ecclesiam, dissoluta πολιτείαecclesiastica." Occasionally lonely voices are heard for the restoration of
episcopacy in the Lutheran Church, but without effect. See F.
Haupt, Der Episcopat der deutschen Reformation, oder Artikel 28 der
Augsburg Conf.,
Frankf., 1866; Luther und der Episcopat, 1866. Thus the responsibility of schism
in the Latin Church was thrown upon Rome. But even if Rome and the Diet
had accepted the Augsburg Confession, the schism would still have
occurred by the further progress of the Protestant spirit, which no
power on earth, not even Luther and Melanchthon, could arrest.

The style of the Latin edition is such as may be
expected from the rare classic culture and good taste of Melanchthon;
while the order and arrangement might be considerably improved.

The diplomatic preface to the Emperor, from the
pen of a lawyer, Chancellor Brück, is clumsy, tortuous,
dragging, extremely obsequious, and has no other merit than to
introduce the reader into the historical situation. The brief
conclusion (Epilogus) is from the same source, and is followed by the
signatures of seven princes and two magistrates. Several manuscript
copies omit both preface and epilogue, as not properly belonging to the
Confession.

Space forbids us to discuss the questions of the
text, and the important variations of the Unaltered Confession of 1530,
and the Altered Confession of 1540, which embodies the last
improvements of its author, but has only a semi-official character and
weight within the Lutheran Church.970970 See on these questions Schaff, Creeds,
I. 237 sqq., and especially Köllner, Symbolik der luth.
Kirche, p. 236
sqq. and 267 sqq.

965 In a letter to Brenz, May, 1531 (Corp. Ref.,
II. 502), Melanchthon remarks that he did not speak more plainly on
this point, "propter adversariorum calumnias." In the Apology of
the Confession (Art. IV.), he is more explicit, and declares this
doctrine incidentally to be "the chief point of Christian doctrine
(praecipuus locus doctrinae Christianae) in this controversy."
Müller, Symb. Bücher, p. 87.
Döllinger charges Melanchthon, in his varying statements of
this doctrine, with sophistry, Die Reformation, III. 279 sqq. The revisers of the Luther
Bible retained the insertion allein in Rom. 3:28.

966 That the Zwinglians are meant by the secus
docentes (in the German ed., Gegenlehr), must be inferred from the preceding
Conference at Marburg, and the whole conduct of the Lutherans during
the Diet. The omission of Zwingli’s name was due,
probably, to respect for his friend the Landgrave of Hesse, one of the
signers of the Confession.

967 "They condemn the Anabaptists, who disallow the
baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without
baptism." The edition of 1540 adds after "sine baptismo" the
words "et extra ecclesiam Christi." The Romish Confutation fully
approves of the condemnation of the Anabaptists, and calls them
"hominum genus seditiosissimum, procul a finibus Romani imperii
eliminandum." Corp. Reform., XXVII. 105.